Tag: Singapore

I am finally coming to the last day of my Singapore trip last week. The last day was a free and easy day for us as we managed to get all our agendas sorted out. We took our time to get ready in the morning. I told Sister that we should at least try a breakfast cafe while in Singapore. She agreed and forfeited her complimentary buffet breakfast at Prego and off we went to hunt for breakfast cafe.

Before going to Singapore, we thought that our schedule would be jam packed with accommodation hunting. So, I did not do any homework for cafe hunting prior to the trip. But surprisingly, we got our agendas sorted out quicker than anticipated. I did a last minute research the night before and came up with Drury Lane but reviews were average to me. I found Cafe Melba and it happened to be located in between Fairmont Hotel and VivoCity.

Instead of taking the MRT, we took the bus from Fairmont Hotel to Cafe Melba which was about 15 minutes bus journey. We almost missed our stop as the bus did not stop along the way. The nearest bus stop to Cafe Melba is Bef Wilkinson Road. The cafe is on your left when alighting from the bus. It is located inside Goodman Art Centre.

It was a weekday morning on the day when we visited so the cafe was quiet. All tables are equipped with an iPad for order placement. There is no physical menu booklet. I can see that quite a number of cafes in Singapore are slowly adapting to the concept of “electronic food ordering”.

Herb Sauteed Mushroom | S$12

Mozzarella Stuffed Potato Rosti | S$18

Sister and I ordered these two to share. I had sent both pictures to Andrea and Jennifer. Andrea asked what were those two round shaped thingy on the plate. She thought they were rice balls while Jennifer thought that they were mozzarella balls! If you were wondering too, those two white balls were poached eggs. The food were okay in my opinion but without the wow factor.

We took the bus from Cafe Melba to VivoCity after breakfast. Having spent days in Singapore, I find commuting by bus is way for convenient and time saving as compared to the MRT. But of course, you must have a good sense of direction in locating the bus stops.

I got a small pack of Garrett Matcha flavored popcorn while waiting for Sister to cash in her money at the ATM. It will only be available for a limited period of time. So, do get yours quick if you love Matcha too!

We shopped in VivoCity for about two hours before we decided that our legs needed some rest. I had been telling Sister that McDonald in Singapore has this limited edition Nasi Lemak Burger in conjunction to their National Day celebration. We were unable to find a McDonald outlet in VivoCity (we did not search thoroughly enough) and resorted to the nearest restaurant that our legs could bring us. We made do with Monster Curry.

Curry Monster is well known for their jumbo size curry consisting of varieties of toppings. The portion was good for two as we saw majority patrons who came in pairs went for their jumbo size curry. I am not a fan of seafood so I went ahead with their regular size Pork Katsu Curry.

I liked their pork cutlets. They were deep fried to perfection and not dry. The curry sauce comes with different level of intensity of spiciness. We chose mildly spicy as Sister is not much of a spicy eater as compared to me.

Our last food stop before leaving VivoCity was Honeymoon Dessert. We were not hungry at the time but the need to rest our tired legs. I can feel my body being weak as my time of the month was approaching at the time when I was in Singapore.

We had McDonald for dinner on our last day in Singapore. We made an effort to locate the nearest McDonald outlet from Fairmont Hotel. Instead of searching for the location online, we went down to the lobby and approached a porter to tell us the nearest McDonald outlet.

Nasi Lemak Burger (Set Meal) | S$12.90

A Nasi Lemak Burger set meal came with Bandung McFizz, Nasi Lemak Burger, Coconut Pie and fries. The Coconut Pie was a no no for me but the Nasi Lemak Burger was good. You get what you are having for a normal Nasi Lemak but minus the coconut rice. The deep fried crispy chicken was coconut flavored. The sambal sauce was sweet and yet spicy at the same time.

I am finally done with my Singapore travelogue blog entry and thank you for staying tune! It is time to hit the sack as I needed to wake up early to cook lunch tomorrow morning.

I will be blogging of my skincare loots very soon but it will be after I am done blogging about my Singapore trip. Hopefully, it will be up the latest by the end of this week. I will be covering the third day of my Singapore trip today.

Both Sister and I started the day early as the agenda of the day was accommodation hunting. The realtor arranged to pick us up from the lobby entrance at 10PM and she arrived on the dot. We went for breakfast at 8AM and still had extra time to spare after breakfast. So, we chilled in the room until it was time to meet the realtor at the hotel lobby.

We viewed 7 properties in a day, four in the morning and another three after lunch. As we had plenty of time to spare, we had the luxury to eat lunch slowly as compared to the second day. We had our lunch in a smaller shopping mall called The Grandstand. There were plenty of food choices to choose from and but we settled with the one our eyes first laid on.

Sister had this and I seriously preferred this over my Wild Mushroom & Truffle Cream. The only downside was it could be tad bit spicy if you cannot take spiciness much. I personally find the spicy level just fine for me.

I had this pasta dish as I was craving for pasta the other day. Unfortunately, it was pretty much of a letdown for me as the pasta were under cooked in my opinion. The portion was pretty generous though. However, I think this pasta dish would have been better if the pasta was nicely done.

After we were done the second round of property viewing in the afternoon, the realtor dropped us off at J’s place and off we went for high tea at Tiong Bahru Bakery located nearby her house as she needed to walk Stanley. I did not have any food picture taken at Tiong Bahru Bakery as I was too tired to do so. We chatted for a bit until it is time for us to return to the hotel and get ready for dinner.

We did not have anything planned for the evening so we walked around Raffles City and had our dinner sorted out at Osaka Ohsho as Sister was craving for Japanese omelette rice.

This rice dish costs $10.90 for ala carte but we added on another S$2 for 6 pieces of Japanese Gyoza. The omelette was extremely smooth and silky. The omelette was rather bland in my opinion but the gravy compensated well the blandness.

So, this summed up my third day and coming up tomorrow is the last day itinerary of my last Singapore trip. Do stay tune if you are interested. See ya …

On the second and last day of our home searching, I had my breakfast in the room while Sister had her complimentary breakfast buffet at Prego. The realtor picked us up from the lobby entrance around 10AM and off we went for our second series of home searching. We covered 9 properties that day and basically had no luxury to have lunch properly. We made do with Cheers and had wraps on the go.

After we were done home searching for the day, the realtor sent us back to the home of Sister’s colleague and we went out for afternoon tea together. Sister’s colleague (let’s call her J) intended to bring us to another pet friendly cafe in the neighborhood but we stumbled across Flock Cafe on the way. So, we decided to just have our afternoon tea at Flock Cafe instead as it was one of the highly recommended cafes in Singapore by Andrea.

FLOCK CAFE
78 Moh Guan Terrace #01-25, Singapore 162078

This was my second visit to Flock Cafe as I had been there couple of years ago on my second visit to Singapore. As we have a pet with us, we need a place which has outdoor dining and Flock Cafe was just perfect at the time.

Say hello to Stanley! I am not sure what breed Stanley is but I think he is a Terrier. Correct me if I am wrong. I snapped a few candid shots of him but this was the best one in my collection.

Genmaicha Latte | S$6.50

I requested for a regular Matcha Latte but they did not have it. One of the staffs recommended me their Genmaicha Latte instead. It was pretty good despite being tad bit sweet. I think the sweetness came from the matcha powder itself. So, it was all good.

Carrot Cake | S$8

Sister wanted to try their Matcha Cake but the customers before us snapped the cake while they placed their orders. So, I got us the last piece of Carrot Cake available. It was good but the frosting was sweet. All in all, it was a good slice.

I always crave for fries whenever my time of the month is approaching. Upon ordering, I asked if they serve regular fries and was being told they only have Cajun Fries. As I was checking their menu, I told Sister that Flock Cafe is well known for their Pork Cheek Sandwich. So, we got ourselves a Pork Cheek Burger to share and it came with Cajun Fries on the side. The texture of pork cheek was extremely tender. It has the texture like mashed up cooked tuna flesh with a slightly sweet aftertaste.

After our tea break at Flock Cafe, J walked us back to Tiong Bahru MRT Station and off we returned to Fairmont Hotel to freshen up a bit before heading out for dinner later in the evening. I was telling Sister that I will bring her to Tanjong Pagar MRT Station as I came across a shop selling air flown perishable goods at an affordable price. Unfortunately, the shop was closed early for the day. For your information, majority shops around Tanjong Pagar close pretty early on Sundays.

I was craving for Korean cuisine that day. So, we exited the station and walked to Amoy Street as I remembered seeing lots of Korean restaurants in the area. Most of the restaurants were close at the time but Korean restaurants are mostly open. I chose Hyang Yeon Korean Kitchen as it was the one restaurant which I saw with quite an number of patrons as compared to other Korean restaurants in the area. So, I guess their food must be better?

HYANG YEON KOREAN KITCHEN
80 Amoy Street #01-01, Singapore 069899

Hyang Yeon Korean Kitchen is operated by a Korean family if I am not wrong. The place was nicely decorated with Korean ambiance. The menu is extensive. I was craving for Budae Jjigae (Army Stew) but I doubted that the two of us would be able to finish the whole thing. So, we got ourselves other dishes in smaller portion.

Sikhye | S$4

Complimentary Banchan that came with our food. The eating utensils were wrapped nicely with a Korean touch. For your information, the Kimchi was good and I asked for a refill.

Hand Made Dumpling | S$15

I requested for Kimchi Mandu upon ordering but the staff came back informing us that they were out of Kimchi Mandu. So, we made do with Pork Mandu instead. To be honest, I did not find anything special with their Pork Mandu. I think I like the Chinese version of Xiao Long Bao better. LOL!

Jjajangmyeon | S$18

I was telling Sister if this restaurant serves decent and authentic Jjajangmyeon, we could always bring Mom to try it out the next time she visits Singapore. However, their Jjajangmyeon has been improvised to cater the local taste. It was pretty sweet in my opinion when the real deal was so much saltier.

So, this summed up the fourth day of my Singapore trip. I still have an overdue third and last day. So, do stay tune if you are interested.

By the end of this series of blog entries, I am pretty sure you would have noticed that most of my itineraries consisted of food only. LOL! Well, I was on my own on the first day apart from meeting with Andrea later in the evening for dinner and supper. I had my breakfast in the hotel the next morning while waiting for Sister to arrive from Shanghai.

She was supposed to land early in the morning. But due to the bad weather condition in the neighboring country, the flight from Singapore to Shanghai got further delayed until later in the evening and it was already 4:20AM when the flight took off from Shanghai to Singapore. Sister arrived at my hotel around 11:00AM and she unpacked a bit before we checked out from Carlton Hotel.

It was pouring cats and dogs after checking out from Carlton Hotel. We intended to walk over to Fairmont Hotel as it was extremely close from Carlton Hotel. But after witnessing the rainy weather condition, we had second thoughts. We asked the butler if there is any underground walkway which connects to Raffles City. Sad to say, there was none and I suggested that maybe we could take a cab over? It was funny but that was the best alternative that we had at the time.

If you fairly know the location of both Carlton and Fairmont Hotel, you would know how close they both are located to each other. They are both a stone throw away from each other. We managed to get a cab with the help of the butler and we arrived Fairmont Hotel all dry. LOL! The cab driver even teased us that it was his “furthest” journey of the day.

Checking into Fairmont Hotel took a while as the receptionist needed some verification from Sister since the reservation was made through her Company’s travel portal. Our room was in the South Tower and it was readily available at the time of our check in. We brought our luggage up and unpacked a bit before venturing out for lunch.

I wanted to try Menya Musashi again since they have quite a pretty good lunch deal during the day but the queue was horrendous. So, we decided to find a restaurant with the shortest queue and that was how we came across Streats Hong Kong Cafe. We were instantly led to a table the moment we stood at the entrance waiting to be served.

Salted Egg Yolk Pumpkin Fries | S$7.80

I had tried Sweet Potato Fries before but never Pumpkin Fries. And furthermore, they were salted egg yolk coated Pumpkin Fries. Sister agreed to share this. I think she loves snacks coated with salted egg yolk. The Pumpkin Fries were good and it was coated with generous amount of salted egg yolk. The coating tasted powdery but sinfully good.

Carrot Cake with Sweet Sauce, Beansprouts & Egg | S$8.80

We loved this. However, it was tad bit too spicy for Sister. It was spicy for me too but my spicy threshold was a lot higher than Sister to begin with. It was spicy to be eaten on its own but extremely appetizing when eaten with the Claypot Porridge.

Claypot Porridge with Chicken, Prawn & Century Egg | S$9.80

After lunch, we took the bus to Suntec City as Sister needed to get her bank stuff sorted out at that particular branch. And guess what? The waiting time was approximately three hours and by the time we were done, it was nearing 5:30PM. We walked back to Fairmont Hotel to freshen up before we meet our respective friends for dinner.

Andrea, Patrick and I met at Tanjong Pagar MRT Station before we head towards the direction of Aloha Poké for dinner. It was Andrea’s idea to try out Aloha Poké as she loves Poké Bowl. Poké Bowl is a trend in Singapore nowadays.

ALOHA POKÉ
92 Amoy Street, Singapore 069911

We did not make any reservation prior to arriving but we managed to secure a table for four at the back of the restaurant immediately when as we entered the restaurant. The three of us decided to choose an item off the menu each so that we could have a fair share of everything.

We had both Salmon and Tuna for our Ultimate Poké Bowl. You can choose the flavors for both Salmon and Tuna. We had both in original flavor as Patrick is not a spicy eating person. It was good and yet refreshing at the same time. We chose salad over white/brown rice for a healthier touch. The salad was topped with generous portions of edamame, raisins and walnuts.

Lomi-Lomi Salmon | S$12

a traditional favorite, diced salmon, tossed with avocados, spices and salad topped with an onsen egg

This was pretty much similar to the Ultimate Poké Bowl that we had but the highlights of this Lomi-Lomi Salmon were the onsen egg and ikura. The diced salmon was marinated with wasabi. It was pretty choking at first as I am not used to eating wasabi to begin with.

We told Patrick to choose something off the menu. He was intrigued to get the Aloha Wings but ended up ordering this one instead. This is like a wrap filled with salad and tender pull pork shoulder. It came with a dipping sauce which was hot and spicy. Despite being all hot and spicy, it complimented the burrito extremely well.

After dinner, we decided to go for desserts nearby as Patrick did not seem to be full for having salad as dinner. We searched over the Internet for the nearest dessert place based on where we were at the time and Andrea came up with Non Entrée Dessert Cafe which is located along Rangoon Road. We walked to the nearest bus stop from Aloha Poké and took a bus to the cafe. Non Entrée Dessert Cafe is also accessible via the MRT and the nearest station is Farrer Park.

We handed the task of ordering over the counter to Patrick and he got us two scoops of gelato on top of the waffle. So, that was an additional S$3 for the extra scoop. We had Pandan Kaya and Hazelnut flavor. The Pandan Kaya flavor was nice but gradually gotten sweeter the more you ate. The Hazelnut flavor was more or less tasted like Nutella to me but less sweeter.

Their gelato had an extremely smooth texture to which I thought gelato was supposed to have slightly rougher texture? I could be wrong but the flavors of the gelato which we had were good. The waffle was as good as their gelato. It tasted great and it came with a crispy edge but soft in the batter.

Andrea remembered me saying that I wanted to try Matcha flavored desserts while in Singapore. So, she suggested that we order this Matcha Avalanche to try.

This image may look obscene to some but this was how this dessert should be like. Make a poke in the centre of the lava cake so that the lava with oozes down onto the chocolate soil. The matcha lava was sweet and there were azuki beans inside as well. The roasted green tea gelato was really good. The level of sweetness was just perfect for me.

I will consider bringing Sister to try out this cafe the next time I am visiting her in Singapore. So, this basically summed up my second day in Singapore the other day. Do stay tune if you wish to know more! See ya …

As mentioned in my previous blog entry, my notebook memory card reader broke down few days ago but it had miraculously recovered. I was able to transfer the pictures stored in my memory card into my notebook but I was too tired to blog regularly while in Singapore. So, here I am now starting from where I left off.

I had dinner with Andrea at Platform 1094 on my first day in Singapore. We agreed to meet each other at the cafe itself instead of meeting at a certain point. Andrea did suggest that we meet somewhere and commute to Platform 1094 together but I had other plan in mind. I told her that I would meet her at Platform 1094 as I wanted to learn map reading.

So, I left Carlton Hotel earlier and took Bus 857 from Capitol Building which brought me straight to the nearest bus stop of Platform 1094. I made a few mistakes with the directions on the way but I managed to reach Platform 1094 safe and sound.

If you are wondering what is so special about Platform 1094, here is a bit of information. Platform 1094 is a Harry Potter inspired theme cafe located on Serangoon Road. Andrea arrived slightly later as she was caught up with some office work. Despite it being a weekday, the cafe was crowded and reservation was required beforehand to avoid disappointment. Andrea made us the reservation beforehand.

PLATFORM 1094
1094 Serangoon Road, Singapore 328192

The cafe was decorated in wizardry theme with almost Harry Potter alike music playing in the background. The background music was slightly too loud in my opinion but it could be because we were seated at the back whereby the speakers were located nearby. The cafe provided “magical” tools like robes, wands, hats and so on which you could play with for photography purpose.

Mrs. Lich Butterscotch Ale | S$10

I was intrigued to try the famous Butterbeer which Harry, Ron and Hermione would order when they made a visit to Leaky Cauldron in Hogsmeade. But unfortunately, it was not exactly stated on the menu which one was Butterbeer and Andrea thought that the closest one would be Mrs. Lich Butterscotch Ale.

Mrs. Lich Butterscotch Ale was made with cream soda (I think) topped with a generous layer of what I presumed to be vanilla cream? It was pretty refreshing at first but could be a bit sickening if having too much. I only managed to finish off half of it.

Andrea and I decided to share a main course as she was not feeling hungry at the time. So, we chose this Pesto Mayo Pork Ribs which came with two pieces of pork ribs served with some mixed vegetables. I loved the onion rings! The meat on the pork ribs was pretty tender in my opinion. However, I got quite a fair share of the fatty parts though.

After dinner, both Andrea and I walked to the nearest bus stop and off we headed to Bugis for Ah Chew Desserts. The queue was not very long and we managed to secure a table for two shortly after. Ah Chew Desserts is always full of patrons enjoying desserts after dinner.

This is my favorite dessert at Ah Chew Dessert which I never failed to order everytime I visit. It came with generous portions of diced mangoes, sago, pomelo and durian flesh. Both Andrea and I left the place shortly after we finished our desserts as I started to feel the exhaustion from the early wake up in the morning for my flight.

So, this pretty much summed the second part of my first day in Singapore. Do stay tune for more if you are interested.